The Magic of Two Hearts

Episode 11

“Very well,” answered her father with a sigh of relief. “You can always come back, can’t you?”

“Yes,” she said indifferently. “I suppose that I can always come back.”

More than three weeks had gone by when one morning Agnes, who slept upon the cartel or hide-strung bed in the wagon, having dressed herself as best she could in that confined place, thrust aside the curtain and seated herself upon the driving-box. The sun was not yet up, and the air was cold with frost, for they were on the Transvaal high-veld at the end of winter. Even through her thick cloak, Agnes shivered and called to the driver of the wagon, who also acted as cook, and whose blanket-draped form she could see bending over a fire into which he was blowing life, to make haste with the coffee.

“By and by, Miss—by and by,” he answered, coughing the rank smoke from his lungs. “Kettle no sing yet, and fire black as hell.”

Agnes reflected that a popular report painted this locality red, but without entering into argument sat still upon the chest waiting till the water boiled and her father appeared.

Immediately, he emerged from under the side flap of the wagon where he was sleeping, and remarking that it was really too cold to think of washing, climbed to her side with the help of the diesel-boom, and kissed her.

“How far are we now from Rooi Krantz, Father?” she asked, for that was the name of Mr. Bernard’s farm.

“About forty miles, dear. The wagon couldn't make it tonight with these two sick oxen, but after midday tomorrow we will ride on, and be there by sundown. I am afraid you are tired of this journey.”

“No,” she answered. “I like it very much; it is so restful, and I sleep sound upon that cartel. "I feel as though I should like to journey on for the rest of my life.” “So you shall, if you wish, dear, for whole months. "South Africa is big, and when the grass grows, if you still wish it, we will take a long journey.” She smiled, but made no answer, knowing that he was thinking of the place so far away where he believed that the Portuguese had buried gold.

The kettle was singing now merrily enough, and Hans, the cook, lifting it from the fire in triumph—for his blowing exertions had been severe—poured into it a quantity of ground coffee from an old mustard tin. Then, having stirred the mixture with a stick, he took a red ember from the fire and dropped it into the kettle, a process which, as travelers in the veld know well, has a clearing effect on the coffee.

Next, he produced pancakes, and handed them up with a pickle jar full of sugar to Mr. Bernard, upon the wagon chest. Milk they had none, yet that coffee tasted a great deal better than it looked; Agnes drank two cups of it to warm herself and wash down the hard biscuit. Before the day was over, glad enough she was that she had done so. The sun was rising; huge and red it looked seen through the clinging mist, and, their breakfast finished, Mr. Bernard gave orders that the oxen, which were feeding on the dry grass nearby, should be brought up. The rider, a Zulu boy, who had left them for a little while to share the rest of the coffee with Hans, rose from his haunches with a grunt, and departed to fetch them. A minute or two later Hans ceased his occupation of packing up the things, and said in a low voice:

“Kek! "Baas”—that is “Look!”

Following the line of his outstretched hand, Agnes and her father perceived, not more than a hundred yards away from them, a great troop of wildebeest, or gnu, traveling along a ridge, and pausing now and again to indulge in those extraordinary gambols which cause the Boers to declare that these brutes have a worm in their brains.

“Give me my rifle, Hans,” said Mr. Bernard. “We need meat.”

By the time the Westley-Richards was drawn from its case and loaded, only one buck remained, for, having caught sight of the wagon, it turned to stare at it suspiciously.

Mr. Bernard aimed and fired. Down went the buck, then springing to its feet again, vanished behind the ridge. Mr. Bernard shook his head sadly. “I don’t often do that sort of thing, my dear, but the light is still very bad. Still, he’s hit. What do you say? Shall we get on the horses and catch him? "The canter would warm you.”

Agnes, who was tender-hearted, reflected that it would be kinder to put the poor creature out of its pain, and nodded her head.

Five minutes later, Mr. Bernard who had first ordered the wagon to move on till they rejoined it, and slipped a packet of cartridges into his pocket. Beyond the sunrise lay a wide stretch of marshy ground, bordered by another rise half a mile or more away, from the crest of which—for now the air was clear enough—they saw the wounded bull standing.

On they went after it, but before they could come within shooting range, it had moved forward once more, for he was only lightly hurt on the flank, and guessed whence his trouble came. Again and again he retreated as they drew near, until at length, just as Mr. Bernard was about to dismount to risk a long shot. The wildebeest took to its heels in earnest.

“Come on,” he said; “don’t let’s be beaten,” for by this time the hunter was alive in him.

So off they went at a gallop, up slopes and down slopes that reminded Agnes of the Bay of Biscay in a storm, across half-dried ditches that in the wet season were ponds, through stony ground and patches of ant-bear holes in which they nearly came to grief.

For five miles at least, the chase went on, since at the end of winter the wildebeest were thin and could gallop well, notwithstanding their injury, faster even than their good horses. Finally, rising up a ridge, they found where it was going, for suddenly they were in the midst of vast herds of game, thousands and tens of thousands of them stretching as far as the eye could reach. It was a wondrous sight that now, alas! will be seen no more—at any rate upon the Transvaal veld; wildebeest, blesbok, springbok, in countless multitudes, and among them a few quagga and hartebeeste.

With a sound like that of thunder, their flashing myriad hoofs casting up clouds of dust from the fire-blackened veld, the great herds separated at the appearance of their enemy, man. This way and that they went in groups and long brown lines, leaving the wounded and exhausted wildebeest behind them, so that he was the only one remaining.

At him they rode till Mr. Bernard, who was a little ahead of his daughter, drew almost alongside. Then the poor maddened brute tried its last shift. Stopping suddenly, it wheeled round and charged head down. Mr. Bernard, as it came, held out his rifle in his right hand and fired at a hazard. The bullet passed through the bull, but could not stop its charge. Its horns, held low, struck the forelegs of the horse, and the next instant, the horse, man, and wildebeest rolled on the veld together.

Agnes, who was fifty yards behind, uttered a little cry of fear, but before she ever reached him, her father had risen laughing, for he was quite unhurt. The horse, too, was getting up, but the bull could rise no more. It struggled to its forefeet, uttered a kind of sobbing groan, stared round wildly, and rolled over, dead.

“I never knew a wildebeest could charge like that before,” said Mr. Bernard.

“Confound it! I believe my horse is lamed.” Lamed it was, indeed, where the bull had struck the foreleg, though, as it chanced, not badly. Having tied a handkerchief to the horn of the buck in order to scare away the vultures, and covered it with some tufts of dry grass, which he proposed, if possible, to fetch or send for, Mr. Bernard mounted his lame horse and headed for the wagon.